PhD Position on Alignment Between Video-AI and Human Cognition

Are you interested in performing high-impact interdisciplinary research in Artificial Intelligence and its alignment with humans and society? The University of Amsterdam has recently started a flagship project on Human-Aligned Video AI (HAVA). The HAVA Lab will address fundamental questions about what defines human alignment with video AI, how to make this computable, and what determines its societal acceptance.

Video AI holds the promise to explore what is unreachable, monitor what is imperceivable and to protect what is most valuable. New species have become identifiable in our deep oceans, the visually impaired profit from automated speech transcriptions of visual scenery, and elderly caregivers may be supported with an extra pair of eyes, to name just three of the many, many application examples. This is no longer wishful thinking. Broad uptake of video-AI for science, for business, and for wellbeing awaits at the horizon, thanks to a decade of phenomenal progress in machine deep learning. However, the same video-AI is also accountable for self-driving cars crashing into pedestrians, deep fakes that make us believe misinformation, and mass-surveillance systems that monitor our behaviour. The research community’s over-concentration on recognition accuracy has neglected human-alignment for societal acceptance. The HAVA Lab is an intern-disciplinary lab that will study how to make the much-needed digital transformation towards human-aligned video AI.

The HAVA Lab will host 7 PhD positions working together with researchers from all 7 faculties of the university, from video AI and its alignment with human cognition, ethics, and law, to its embedding in medical domains, public safety, and business. The lab has 9 supervisors in total spanning all 7 faculties of the university for maximum interdisciplinarity. Depending on the specific topic, the PhD students also have a strong link to the working environment and faculty of their respective supervisors. The HAVA Lab has been given a unique central location at the library, an ideal hub for interdisciplinary collaborations. The PI of the lab is prof. dr. Cees Snoek.

The PhD Position on alignment between video-AI and human cognition will be supervised by dr. Iris Groen and dr. Pascal Mettes, both from the University of Amsterdam.

What are you going to do?

For this position, you will investigate whether we can make video AI computationally efficient by making it more human brain-like. The rich perceptual content of video, containing objects moving and activities unfolding in space and time, poses a much more challenging cognitive-alignment problem than existing work focusing on static images only. We expect dynamic adaptation and sparser network geometries to better approximate human efficiency. Our ideal PhD candidate has an interdisciplinary Neuro-AI profile, with a solid background in Machine Learning and familiarity with human cognitive neuroscience research.

Tasks and responsibilities

Your tasks will be to:

• Perform novel research towards video AI and its human-alignment in society;
• Actively collaborate within the interdisciplinary HAVA Lab;
• Present research results at international conferences and journals;
• Be active in sharing your research in the public as well as in the social domain, according to UvA Guidelines;
• Assist in teaching activities such as lab assistance and student supervision;
• Pursue and complete a PhD thesis within the appointed duration of four years.

What do you have to offer?

Your experience and profile:

• A relevant master’s degree to the PhD topic of interest. Our ideal PhD candidate has an interdisciplinary Neuro-AI profile, with a solid background in Machine Learning and familiarity with human cognitive neuroscience research;
• Affinity with interdisciplinary research in Artificial Intelligence;
• Interest in developing skills required in complementary disciplines;
• Experience with programming in Python, computer vision and machine learning;
• You are highly motivated, independent, and creative;
• Strong communication, presentation and writing skills and excellent command of English.

Our offer

A temporary contract for 38 hours per week for the duration of 4 years (the initial contract will be for a period of 18 months and after satisfactory evaluation it will be extended for a total duration of 4 years). The preferred starting date is first half of 2024. This should lead to a dissertation (PhD thesis). We will draft an educational plan that includes attendance of courses and (international) meetings. We also expect you to assist in teaching undergraduates and master students.

The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week, ranges between € 2,770 in the first year to € 3,539 in the last year (scale P). UvA additionally offers an extensive package of secondary benefits, including 8% holiday allowance and a year-end bonus of 8.3%. The UFO profile PhD Candidate is applicable. A favourable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants.

Besides the salary and a vibrant and challenging environment we offer you multiple fringe benefits:

• 232 holiday hours per year (based on fulltime) and extra holidays between Christmas and 1 January;
• Multiple courses to follow from our Teaching and Learning Centre;
• A complete educational program for PhD students;
• Multiple courses on topics such as time management, handling stress and an online learning platform with 100+ different courses;
• 7 weeks birth leave (partner leave) with 100% salary;
• Partly paid parental leave;
• The possibility to set up a workplace at home;
• A pension at ABP for which UvA pays two third part of the contribution;
• The possibility to follow courses to learn Dutch;
• Help with housing for a studio or small apartment when you’re moving from abroad.